


Everyday Hero

by lha



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Fluff, Heroism, M/M, Multi, Threesome - M/M/M, everyday adventure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-31
Updated: 2018-05-31
Packaged: 2019-05-16 15:31:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14814057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lha/pseuds/lha
Summary: On a rare shared day off, Hugh, Paul & Gabriel head out of town.  What starts as a delightful day out, ends in a case of every day heroism.For the lovely Deb x





	Everyday Hero

Gabriel took a moment to close his eyes and tilt his face up towards the early afternoon sun. He was walking ahead of the others, listening to the pair of them discuss (to Paul monologue) on the best way to pack self-cooling containers in a backpack. It was a beautiful day, the weather was glorious and they’d transported out of San Francisco, Hugh determined that this was a day for fresh air together. It was such a rare thing for all three of them to be off, on the same planet and without injury that even if Hugh’s face hadn’t lit up so demonstrably at the idea, Gabriel would have been hard pressed to say no. 

So, here they were, having spent most of the morning hiking along a slightly precarious path halfway up the side of a beautiful, green gorge. The sound of the fast running water of the river twenty feet below drifting through the warm summer air.

“Gabe? Would you tell him he’s being ridiculous?” Hugh Asked.

“Paul, you’re being ridiculous,” he said absently, his gaze fixing on a point on the path several bends ahead. As the path followed the side of the gorge it undulated with the coarse of the river. Perhaps eight-hundred meters away, a woman and child had appeared around the furthest bend he could see. 

“You don’t even know what I was saying,” Paul pointed out.

“No, but you’re always being ridiculous.”

“Says the man who runs the equivalent of two marathons a week but will do anything to avoid climbing stairs.”

“Old knees,” Gabriel mumbled starting to walk at a more purposeful pace, sensing something was wrong before anything actually happened. The child, a boy he thought, was ahead of the woman, running, skipping, turning around to call back to her and then he misstepped. His foot slid off the edge of the path a fall of rocks down the cliff side echoing through the gorge as he slid several feet and came to rest on a stoney outcrop. The ledge was broad enough and looked secure enough from what Gabriel could see that he wasn’t worried about him falling further unless he panicked but the woman, the mother, was clearly distraught. She was leaning over, trying to help him but couldn’t reach his outstretched hand. Gabriel restrained from calling out only because he knew that surprising her would be less than helpful. Instead, he lengthened his stride, stretching out into a steady jog. 

The sound of the others behind him registered only briefly as he sped up until he was running flat out. As the path undulated, he only caught glances on what it was that was transpiring but even still he knew what was going to happen long before it did. Coming back out into the open, Gabriel glanced down to assess the uneven terrain beneath his feet, and by the time he looked back up she had extended one foot down the cliff side. There was nothing he could do but watch as, just as she pulled the boy back up to the the path, the shale slid out from beneath her foot and she tumbled down the slope. 

Struggling out of the backpack he was wearing, Gabriel dumping it onto the path before he’d come to a stop. He contemplated stripping off but instead, started scrambling down the slope in a controlled slide, aiming for a shelf just above the water and upriver from where the woman had gone in. Once there, he pulled off his shoes and his shirt and dove into the current. 

****

Hugh smiled as Gabe and Paul traded snide insults as easily as they breathed. He’d happily stood his ground against the scientist for years but there was no denying he found the back and forth far less satisfying than these two did. The first indication that anything was wrong came as Gabriel’s pace picked up his gaze firmly on where they could see another curve of the path further along the gorge. He could feel the moment that Paul spotted it too as he stiffened next to him. They sped up wordlessly as Gabriel stretched out his legs, nimbly navigating the uneven ground.

Despite his specialty being less reliant on physical prowess than some, Hugh was still a Starfleet officer. That said, neither he now Hugh could keep up with Gabe even in favourable circumstances. Here neither of them had a hope of keeping up with him. Trail running was a special art and while it was part of the obligatory physical education element of the Academy, Hugh hadn’t done this in decades, Thus said, they couldn’t do anythig but watch as he sped ahead.

Because of the nature of the path however, he could see the moment that the woman took an ill advised step off the path.

“Shit,” Paul breathed, next to him. They lost sight of both the woman and child and Gabriel as they followed another twist and Hugh’s heart was firmly wedged in his throat as they came out of the wooded stretch. They were just in time to see Gabe disappear over the edge of the path in a vaguely controlled fall. Somehow they managed to run faster, Paul stopping at the point where Gabriel had abandoned his backpack as Hugh continued on to where the 6 or 7 year old was sitting on the path looking desolately at where his mother should have been.

“Hey,” Hugh said, trying to control his breathing and not overtly panic as he glanced over the edge and saw Gabriel diving unquestioningly into the water.

“My… my mum?” the boy said, his voice wobbling tellingly.

“I know, we’re going to do everything we can to get her back safe.” Paul was talking quietly into the communicator Gabriel habitually packed. “Come away from the edge now,” he encouraged, watching as his partner struck out with string athletic strokes. 

The boy clung to him, trembling and crying as Hugh forcibly steered him away from the edge. 

“They can’t get a lock for a transport,” Paul said when he joined them. “They’re scanning for lifesigns further down river though and sending out first responders,” he added, calmly. “They’re suggesting that we move further along the path, there’s a clearing this way where they should be able to land a shuttle.”

****

Paul led them along the path, glancing constantly to his left and down into the ravine. His mind was running equations about water speed and currents because that was what he did. Hugh would be thinking about injuries and treatments and Gabriel… Gabriel had known what was going to happen before it had. He’d been assessing the situation, seen the probable outcomes and calculating potential scenarios before any of the rest of them had realised that anything was wrong.

The water was fast flowing and the river bed was studded with rocks but there was no falls or rapids for several kilometres. It was the only real advantage to the situation that Paul could currently see. A small part of his brain was still stuck on the idea that for reasons beyond understanding, there were areas of earth that Starfleet, who provided emergency services for the civilian government, could not scan. The fact that by the time they made it to the clearing, a shuttle was already landing didn’t ease his anger much.

Paul’s understanding of water dynamics was nowhere near as in depth as other areas of science but that didn’t stop him trying to establish where it was likely that the two of them would wash up.

“This way,” he called as the personnel started disembarking, setting back off at a run. They rounded another corner, and as the path started to climb again, he suddenly spotted something on the far side of the water. Gabriel was swimming purposefully towards the shore, one arm securely wrapped around the torso of an unresponsive woman, her head resting on his shoulder and above the water. It was clear that he was struggling, obviously exhausted, and while he’d removed most of his clothing before he’d entered the water, the woman had not and her floaty dress was fighting against them. 

“Can we get a fix on that area?” the team leader asked, looking to her people.

“No, not for an uplift or a set down,” another responded his head buried in a scanner. Hugh arrived next to him, without the child whom he’d obviously left with someone he trusted to be able to deal with them. The other man reached for his hand, grasping tightly at his fingers while neither of them breathed. Gabriel made it to the shore though and pulled the woman far enough onto dry land that they wouldn’t be swept back out again. More than that though, rather than collapsing next to her, he knelt up, felt for a pulse and clearly not not finding one, started CPR. 

“Why aren’t you…?” Hugh asked turning to the rescue team with barely maintained professional irritation.  
“Forgive us, Sir, we can’t get a lock on any point below about twenty feet up from the river bed.”

“Well, what are you planning on doing then?” Paul asked, placing a restraining hand on his partner’s arm.

“We’re setting down another team on the far side of the gorge,” he said indicating the top of the far cliff, fifty feet up from where Gabriel was still working. They’ll have a hoist in place in the next few minutes.” 

****

Gabriel enjoyed swimming. It was a rare pleasure when you were based on a ship and while he’d often swam as part of his fitness regime on earth, it was usually in controlled circumstances, a warm pool. This was neither. He knew roughly where he was aiming for, the white of the woman’s dress acting like a beacon. She wasn’t struggling and whether it was because she was unconscious or just frozen with terror he wasn’t sure but it meant that she was being dragged by the current. It was just a question of focus. He struck out as fast as he could working with the flow of water knowing it would take him in the right direction. 

The fact that she was unconscious when he caught up with her, made holding her easier than panic would have but she was unable to help as he tried to pull them free of the current. He moved towards the shallows, stumbling to his feet and trying to pull her as far out of the water as he could manage. His limbs were strangely wobbly and uncoordinated as he knelt up beside her but he was acting solely on training and adrenalin now. Checking for pulse and respiration, and finding none, he began CPR. This was it though, he had to trust that the others would have gone for help, that they would come because now that he’d started he wouldn’t be able to stop. 

He wasn’t sure how long he’d been at it when a voice calling across the gorge broke through his focus.

“Admiral! Admiral Lorca!” He looked round, not breaking the rhythm of his heart compressions. “We’re sending someone down the cliff face above you,” they continued through the hailer. “They should be with you in less than five minutes.”

“Acknowledged,” he called back, as loudly as he could muster. Somehow the following minutes seemed to go on and on and even when two emergency response personnel arrived next to him, he struggled to realise that this meant he could stop. That it was over. 

“Admiral?” One of them asked, forcibly moving him out of the way. They wrapped a blanket around his shoulders and only then realised that he was shivering convulsively.

“Gabe?” A voice was calling across the divide. He looked around and then up towards the path. He could just about make out Paul holding the comm unit, Hugh standing stiffly at his side. He raised a hand in acknowledgement, falling back to sit on the stones beneath him. It was like someone had pulled his chord and he was left entirely flat. 

“Just hang on love,” Hugh was saying from what seemed even further away than he knew he was. 

“Admiral?” a voice said much more closely said, breaking him from his trance like stare across the churning water. “Admiral we’re ready to take you up.” The young man had a harness in hand and as he looked around he realised that the others were gone. “The casualty has been lifted high enough to be transported out. We need to get you back to Medical sir, get you checked out.”

“I’m quite alright, Ensign,” he said, pulling himself back into reality as much as he could. Trying to stand was enough to disproved his original statement. He had to rely on the young man’s help to get upright and then to step into the harness. 

“I’ll go up with you,” the young officer said. “Let the rig do the work and I’ll stop you from cracking your head too badly.” Gabriel wanted to protest, wanted to point out that he was a perfectly adequate climber, but by the time he’d formed the sentence, he was several feet off the ground. They made it to a ledge of someform but before he could make an effort to get over the edge and collapse onto the stone outcrop in a boneless heap a familiar tingling sensation took hold. 

“Gabe!” Someone caught him as his legs gave out beneath him, shortly after he materialised.

“... position to initiate transport…” Once he’d got his feet beneath him again, his legs seemed more inclined to hold him up.

“Oh love,” Hugh wasn’t so much hugging him, as squeezing the very life out of him.

“Back off. You’ll break him,” Paul said tersley, only to step in and hold him, if anything, more tightly.

“Let me get a proper look at you,” Hugh said after a moment, firm profesional hands running him over. “Paul would you check that there’s a room and a heating blanket warming?”

“I’m fine,” Gabriel managed after a moment.

“You’re borderline hypothermic and absolutely exhausted,” Hugh said coolly. “I love you so much,” he continued, leaning in and kissing him thoroughly. 

“I’m not sure I follow, but thank you.”

“Let’s get you somewhere private and out of these wet things.” 

“Well, I’m not sure I’m up to much of a performance,” Gabriel said dryly.

“Shush,” Hugh said, looking around and spotting Paul standing next to one of the cubices. “Come on.”

Gabriel followed him out of the triage reception area and off into the private room.

“I love you,” Paul said, for no apparent reason as they entered. “Don’t ever do anything that stupid ever again.”

“I didn’t do anything that wasn’t a calculated and acceptable risk,” Gabriel replied automatically, slightly perplexed.

“Acceptable risk, pah,” Paul said with an flippant gesture. 

“Either of you would have done the same,” he said, frowning.

“I’m pretty sure, neither of us would have scrambled down that sheer cliff face or dived into that river,” Paul said.

“Surely…”

“No,” Paul reiterated firmly.

“But you did, and you saved that woman,” Hugh cut in, swapping the blanket around his shoulders for another, warmer towel. “My hero,” he continued, kissing his cheek.

“Not a hero,” he said, flicking his gaze away, “really not.”

“You are,” Paul said, a hand firmly wrapping around the back of his head, “you really, really are.”

“We thought…” Hugh said, focusing on the scanner he was running up and down Gabriel. “We could have lost you today,” he tried again, still not looking up. 

“New rule,” Paul said abruptly. “No heroics on days off.”

“We’re never really off…” Gabriel tried, only to be stopped by Hugh kissing him firmly.

“Shush,” he said, drawing back only far enough rest his forehead against Gabriel’s own. Paul’s arms wrapped around him from behind and Gabriel was surrounded, trapped and he’d never felt better.

**Author's Note:**

> Really hope you've enjoyed!
> 
> Let me know here or on twitter @LHA_again  
> Lx


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